My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 511

Chapter 511

I let out a long, wrecked groan against the quiet wall, my jaw clamped shut as the final waves of the release shot through my chest down to my fingertips.

On the monitor, the video showed us both gasping, my past self burying his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in.

I stared at the screen. A sharp ache settled somewhere behind my ribs. I wanted that.

Her.

Right now.

I wanted to pull her close and press my face against her neck. I wanted the familiar scent of her shampoo. The warmth of her skin. The quiet certainty that came whenever she was within reach.

I wanted to stay there until the constant noise in my head finally stopped until I could sleep.

But I sat there alone, my chest rising and falling, staring at the final frame of her flushed, ruined face before I saw myself retreating back into myself and pushing her away from me.

My jaw tightened.

A sudden surge of… aggression moved through me so quickly my hands curled against the edge of the desk.

I wanted to reach through the monitor and grab that version of myself by the throat.

Because he had been standing in front of the one person who consistently chose him and his response had been to back away.

I stared at the screen, “You absolute fucking moron.”

The version of me on the monitor said nothing, just kept creating distance.

My fingers tightened harder, “If I could go back in time, I’d beat some sense into you.’

The pressure behind my ribs increased, every signal, every opportunity, every indication. And somehow he had still managed to reach the worst possible conclusion.

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes briefly. The urge to break something was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

“Fucking unbelievable.”

I opened my eyes and looked at the screen again.

There she was, looking at me with those soft green eyes.

And there I was… acting like proximity was dangerous when losing her had always been the actual fucking threat.

“The acquisition only makes sense if we absorb their research division before the patents expire.”

The presentation continued across the massive screen at the end of the conference room. Twenty-two people sat around the black table, three vice presidents, four department heads and two lawyers.

The rest were analysts and executives waiting for me to decide whether Orion Vector Technologies would spend another two hundred million dollars.

The answer was yes.

I had already decided fourteen minutes ago.

The meeting was simply the process everyone else needed.

My fingers tapped once against the table, “The cybersecurity concerns?”

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